Windows 10 and a busy hard drive?

I would like to know if what I am about to describe is occurring with many other users. Since I upgraded from Win7 to WIn10, I have noticed that my SSD seems to be a lot busier than it was in Win7. I've got a SSD so this disk activity is certainly not loud by any means. But I never used to hear those subtle little 'clicks' so frequently in the background as I do now. I have turned off many of the features under privacy (including the one that shares my internet connection with others to acquire WIndows Updates). But this 'busy' activity seems to continue. First, I thought if must be the new OS indexing all of my files since I did a clean install. But since it's now been a few weeks, that does not explain it. Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue? Thanks.

scott784 said:

I would like to know if what I am about to describe is occurring with many other users. Since I upgraded from Win7 to WIn10, I have noticed that my SSD seems to be a lot busier than it was in Win7. I've got a SSD so this disk activity is certainly not loud by any means. But I never used to hear those subtle little 'clicks' so frequently in the background as I do now. I have turned off many of the features under privacy (including the one that shares my internet connection with others to acquire WIndows Updates). But this 'busy' activity seems to continue. First, I thought if must be the new OS indexing all of my files since I did a clean install. But since it's now been a few weeks, that does not explain it. Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue? Thanks.

Have a look in task manager and see what is busy, also stop programs from opening with windows in the boot section.

Bazz said:

Have a look in task manager and see what is busy, also stop programs from opening with windows in the boot section.

I looked in Task Manager. There are 56 background Processes, and 29 Windows Processes. And I also notice, when I am doing nothing (except looking at Task Manager--without manually opening any other programs), memory usage remains constant at about 34%. I wonder if this is high for a PC sitting idle, especially in light of the fact that I've got 8 GB of Ram? I am also noticing a number of redundant processes (under background processes), such as Google Chrome (32 bit) showing '6' instances of itself. Note: I am using the 64 bit version of Win10.

I am not experiencing any problems. And I realize the nature of Win10 (unlike Win7) is to 'phone home' to Microsoft more frequently. I just find this experience a bit odd and keep wondering what is it doing? Thanks for any additional thoughts here.

open task manager go to the startup tab disable the google from loading when windows starts and some of the other programs that start up and reboot then see if that clears it up also look for startup entries that don't have a name but are title NA or just program
in a white area near the top of task manager right click and choose command line this will show the location of those dead or uninstalled apps or programs
note some of the start up processes can be set to start auto with a delay allowing windows to boot faster.. just a thought

scott784 said:

I looked in Task Manager. There are 56 background Processes, and 29 Windows Processes. And I also notice, when I am doing nothing (except looking at Task Manager--without manually opening any other programs), memory usage remains constant at about 34%. I wonder if this is high for a PC sitting idle, especially in light of the fact that I've got 8 GB of Ram? I am also noticing a number of redundant processes (under background processes), such as Google Chrome (32 bit) showing '6' instances of itself. Note: I am using the 64 bit version of Win10.

I am not experiencing any problems. And I realize the nature of Win10 (unlike Win7) is to 'phone home' to Microsoft more frequently. I just find this experience a bit odd and keep wondering what is it doing? Thanks for any additional thoughts here.

All of those instances of chrome are normal, but like I said disable things that you don't need to start with windows from the startup. Also post a screen shot of busy task manager processes.

Bazz said:

All of those instances of chrome are normal, but like I said disable things that you don't need to start with windows from the startup. Also post a screen shot of busy task manager processes.

Ironically, since I've been talking about it, things seem a little quieter on my SSD this evening (lol). But here's a couple of screenshots of the background processes. I've got it on 2 screenshots (the last one also runs into a partial list of Windows Processes) which I wasn't trying to include. Thanks.

scott784 said:

Ironically, since I've been talking about it, things seem a little quieter on my SSD this evening (lol). But here's a couple of screenshots of the background processes. I've got it on 2 screenshots (the last one also runs into a partial list of Windows Processes) which I wasn't trying to include. Thanks.

Looks pretty much normal to me don't forget you have malwarebytes running and cortana. I got rid of nvidia backend because it was causing problems with my shut down.

Bazz said:

Looks pretty much normal to me don't forget you have malwarebytes running and cortana. I got rid of nvidia backend because it was causing problems with my shut down.

Thanks for having a look. Things have actually calmed down two days in a row with less disk activity. Maybe someone has heard me talking about Win10 activity and too much phoning home to Microsoft (lol). But my SSD has seemed to have settled down a bit. We see if it lasts.

The worst thief in Windows 10 is "Updates from More than one place" in your Settings->Security->Updates->Advanced Settings-> "Choose how Updates are Delivered" - keep that turned off, it allows Microsoft to use your computer to deliver updates to other people. There were a bunch of updates last few days, the high Disk usage might have been this p2p network activity, it's basically a torrent system that uses your PC to distribute updates.